One right after another, most of them red brick and showing their age in the bleak cold, the street lined with bare trees.

Karen had asked the doorman if it ever snowed and he said, "Mmmm, it should be starting pretty soon."

The door opened.

Karen said, "Moselle Miller?"

The woman, about thirty, light-skinned, sleepy-eyed, said, "What you want?" She wore a green silk robe and was holding her arms close against the cold.

"I'm looking for Maurice."

"You find him, tell him the dog got run over and I'm out of grocery money."

A male voice from inside said, "Moselle. Who you talking to?"

"Lady looking for Maurice."

"What's she want?"

"Hasn't said."

Karen said, "That's not Maurice?"

"That's Kenneth, my brother. He's talking on the phone."

The voice said, "Ask what she want with him."

"You ask her. Maurice's business," Moselle said, "is none of my business," sounding tired or bored. She turned from the door and walked into the living room.

Karen stepped inside, pushed the door closed and moved into the foyer.

She heard Kenneth's voice and saw him now- in the study, a small room with empty bookcases-black male about six-one, medium build, twenty-five to thirty, wearing a yellow T-shirt and red baseball cap backward, talking on a cordless phone. She saw him standing in profile and heard him say, "How do I know?" Now he was listening, nodding.

"Yeah, I can make it. The State, huh. Who's fighting?" He listened, nodding again, said, "What's this other deal?" turning to the foyer, and Karen walked into the living room.

Moselle was on the sofa lighting a cigarette. She said to Karen, "You like to sit down?"

Karen said thanks and took a chair and looked around the room: dismal, gray daylight in the windows, dark wood and white stucco, the fireplace full of trash, plastic cups, wrappers, a pizza box.

Moselle said, "What you want Maurice for?"

"I'm looking for a friend of mine I think Maurice knows."

"You not with probation, one of those?"

Karen shook her head.

"No."

"You a lawyer?"

Karen smiled.

"No, I'm not." She said, "Maybe you know him. Glenn Michaels?"

Moselle drew on her cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke.

"Glenn? No, I don't know any Glenn."

"He wasn't here last November?"

"He might've been, I don't know."

"He said he stayed here."

"Here? In this house?"

"He said he stayed with Maurice."

"Well, he ain't even here that much." Moselle drew on her cigarette, let the smoke drift from her mouth and waved at it in a lazy gesture.

"I like to know where he goes, but at the same time I don't want to know. You understand? I was with a man before Maurice, I knew his business, I knew everything he did, a beautiful young man, and it was like looking in the future, seeing how it would come to an end and, sure enough, it did. He got blown up."

Karen waited.

"He sat down in a chair this time… I spoke to him on the phone. He sat down in the chair and when he went to get up, he got blown to pieces."

Karen said, "You knew it was going to happen?"

"I knew too much," Moselle said.

"I knew waaay too much.

It's why I don't know nothing now. I don't know any Glenn, I don't know nothing what's going on. Understand?"

Karen watched her, Moselle's arms hugging the green robe closed.

"Your dog was killed?"

"Got run over by a car."

"What did you call it?"

"Was a she, name Tuffy."

"Where do you think I might find Maurice?"

"I don't know-the gym, the fights. He thinks he still in that business. I know he don't miss the fights. Having some tomorrow night at the State. He use to take me."

Kenneth stood in the arched entrance from the foyer. He said to Karen,

"What you want with Maurice?"

Moselle said, "She looking for a man name of Glenn."

Kenneth said, "Did I ask you? Go on out of here. Do something with yourself." He waited until Moselle got up, not saying a word, and walked away from them through the dining room. Karen watched him coming toward her now in kind of an easy strut, the backward baseball cap low on his forehead, letting her know he was cool, he was fly, by the way he moved.

She saw the scar tissue over his eyes and said, "You're a fighter?"

"How you know that?"

"I can tell."

"I was," Kenneth said, moving his head in what might be a feint, "till I got my retina detached two times." He was standing in front of her now, so close Karen had to look up at him.

"What'd you fight, middleweight?"

"Light to super-middleweight, as my body developed. You go about what, bantam?"

"Flyweight," Karen said, and saw him grin.

"You know your divisions. You like the fights? Like the rough stuff?

Yeah, I bet you do. Like to get down and tussle a little bit?

Like me and Tuffy, before she got run over, we use to get down on the floor and tussle. I say to her, "You a good dog, Tuffy, here's a treat for you." And I give Tuffy what every dog love best. You know what that is? A bone. I can give you a bone, too, girl. You want to see it? You close enough, you can put your hand out and touch it."

Karen shook her head.

"You're not my type."

"Don't matter," Kenneth said, moving his hand across his leg to his fly.

"I let the monster out, you gonna do what it wants."

"Just a minute," Karen said. Her hand went into her bag, next to her on the chair.

Kenneth said, "Bring your own rubbers with you?"

Her hand came out of the bag holding what looked like the grip on a golf club and Kenneth grinned at her.

"What else you have in there, Mace? Have a whistle, different kinds of female protection shit? Telling me you ain't a skeezer, or you don't feel like it right now?"

Karen pushed out of the chair to stand with him face-to-face.

She said, "I have to go, Kenneth," and gave him a friendly poke with the black vinyl baton that was like a golf club grip.

"Maybe we'll see each other again, okay?" She stepped aside and brushed past him, knowing he was going to try to stop her.

And when he did, grabbing her left wrist, saying, "We gonna tussle first."

Karen flicked the baton and sixteen inches of chrome steel shot out of the grip. She pulled an arm's length away from him and chopped the rigid shaft at his head, Kenneth hunching, ducking away, yelling "God damn," letting go of her and Karen got the room she needed, a couple of steps away from him, and when he came at her she whipped the shaft across the side of his head and he howled and stopped dead, pressing a hand over his ear.

"What's wrong with you?"

Scowling at her, looking at his hand and pressing it to his ear again, Karen not sure if he meant because she hit him or because she turned him down.

"You wanted to tussle," Karen said, "we tussled." And walked out.

Moselle came out of the dining room holding her robe together, shaking her head to show her brother some sympathy.

She said, "Baby, don't you know what that girl is?"

Kenneth turned to her frowning, showing how dumb he was from getting his head pounded in the ring.

"She some land of police, precious. But nice, wasn't she?"

"You gonna tell Maurice?"

"You the one she beat on, not me."

"Maurice is coming by later. We gonna do a job."

"If I'm upstairs, tell him I need grocery money."

The phone rang. Kenneth went into the den to answer.

The doorbell rang. Moselle opened the door and there was Karen again, handing her a business card. Moselle looked at it as Karen said, "I wrote the hotel number on there-in case you run into Glenn."

Moselle slipped the card into the pocket of her robe.

Kenneth didn't ask who it was at the door and she didn't tell him.

What Foley couldn't understand, for a big industrial city like Detroit there were so few people on the streets. Sunday, Buddy said it was because it was Sunday and everybody was home watching the game. Today was Tuesday, there still weren't many people walking around downtown.